Today we begin the Octave before Christmas Eve. For some of us, Christmas can’t get here quickly enough. For others of us, the shock that Advent is almost over is palpable. The pastor in my parish observed yesterday that if you haven’t yet gotten serious about your Advent resolutions, you are running out of time. […]

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the memorial of one of its great mystics, St. John of the Cross. Like his friend Teresa of Avila and so many other mystics, John often expressed his experience of God in poetry. One of John’s poems is a beautiful one for us as in this latter part of Advent. […]

Tonight was the opening session of the Lenten Ignatian Retreat at St. Thomas More. After this initial large group meeting, small retreat groups will meet weekly, and participants will pray each day with materials we provide to them that are based on Weeks 2 and 3 of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I gave […]

Today was the second session of the Fall Reflection Series that Jennifer Wright and I are offering at the University of St. Thomas (on the Minneapolis campus) this year. The theme for this five week series is Women of the Bible. In last week’s opening session, Jennifer spoke about Sarah and Hagar. (You can find her talk […]

Monday was the first session of the Fall Reflection Series that Jennifer Wright and I are offering at the University of St. Thomas (on the Minneapolis campus) this year. Our theme for the five week series is Women of the Bible. Monday I briefly introduced the series and Jennifer spoke our our first subjects: Sarah […]